


taste of death

by kybcr



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drug Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Not Beta Read, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Torture, cant write a single fic with riko thats not r rated huh the little shit, holy shit i didnt mean for it to turn out this dark lol what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 16:37:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20838674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kybcr/pseuds/kybcr
Summary: death tastes like three things: pills, linoleum, and kevin day.





	taste of death

**Author's Note:**

> debuting my new writing style, i call it Overuse of Parentheses
> 
> heed tagged warnings, pls be safe. english isn't my first language and i don't have a beta reader so apologies for any mistakes. i'm abroad and can't access a laptop so sorry for any strange mobile formatting too

Death tastes like three things.

The first thing: bitter. Like a little orange bottle of painkillers swallowed dry, like the taste of ash down Riko’s throat, like lying paralyzed on the narrow bed staring up at the ceiling while his heart races and his lungs tighten. The bottle and a few leftover pills fall from his hand onto the floor; Riko doesn’t hear it hit the ground, only the pounding of his heart trying to get oxygen out of his seizing lungs.

_ Is this living?_ asks an imaginary Kevin from out of his peripheral vision.

_ A little closer to it,_ muses Riko. And then the _ real_ Kevin steps through the door, runs to his side, tries and fails to shake him awake. (Riko’s eyes are wide open. He can see every tear clinging to Kevin’s lashes.) Kevin whispers an apology before calling Coach Tetsuji (probably, Riko still can’t hear anything except blood rushing in his ears) and this, this is what death tastes like, surely.

(The Master stops giving the Ravens painkillers from then on.)

(Obviously, that doesn’t stop Riko.)

Hell is a place, and it is called Castle Evermore.

To be specific: hell is the bathroom of the Red House dorm Riko and Kevin have shared since they were eleven, and Riko sits, Tantalus in Hades’ pool, in the bathtub surrounded by pink water. The lashes on his back sting. Riko lied through his teeth to Kevin earlier— _ they don’t hurt that much— _ while screaming inside where Kevin tried to be as gentle as possible cleaning the lashes.

_ Make it hurt,_ Riko remembers thinking to himself fuzzily, when the water had still been warm, holding a knife in one shaking hand, _ make it hurt and maybe I will feel like I’ve lived._

_ Is this living, then?_ asks Kevin, the false one standing at the corner of his imagination. _ Do you feel alive?_

_ Not even close,_ admits Riko. It just feels like sitting in cold water. In hell. His back stings, it does, but less than his wrists.

_ That is a lot of cuts,_ remarks Not-Kevin.

_ Well, it took me a few tries to get it right,_ defends Riko, and then he remembers he’s talking to a figment of his imagination, tries to laugh, and only manages to cough.

_ No, it didn’t,_ accuses Not-Kevin.

(He’s right. Again. Riko knows exactly how to use his knives. He’s _ good _ at using them. He knows exactly where the radial artery is in the wrists. If he missed it this many times, with a knife this sharp, then that only means that— )

“You don’t really want to die,” finishes the real Kevin, wrapping his ruined wrists carefully as they sit on the bathroom counter in hell. He might be crying.

(_ Of course I don’t,_ thinks Riko. _ I only want to feel alive._ )

***

The second thing death tastes like is cold linoleum. Death tastes like… not much at all, just like blood and the inside of his cheek the day the Master throws him a little too hard and Riko hits his jaw on the hard tiled floor first.

(He's nine years old and the tooth that gets knocked out is a baby tooth, so the Master doesn't bother getting it filled.)

_ This can't be living, _ thinks Riko, the nineteen-year-old one, blearily, through a haze of drugs. He reaches up to try and pry the ventilator mask off his face but finds his arms are too heavy to move.

_ I'll be the king_ , sings the nine-year-old Riko in the corner of a dusty memory, _ and you'll be the prince, _ he continues, reaching up to perch a paper crown on Kevin's head before sweeping a bedsheet up into a makeshift cape. _ And this will be our castle, _ adds nine-year old Riko, motioning to the room around them.

_ I'll be the king. _ Riko, the nineteen-year-old one, pushes a boy's dorm door open, already palming his knife. There's a little French bird who's just flown the cage named Jean Moreau and he's Riko's newest pet. _ You'll be the prince. _ Kevin watches impassively while Riko makes Jean count out a hundred cuts, makes him start over when he loses count. _ This will be our castle._ Kevin is the only one allowed to call him Riko; on the court, the Ravens call him Captain, number one, King. Jean mocks him, sneers _ your highness _ and _ his majesty Riko_ . The first time he hears it, Riko snatches Jean's left hand up, places it on the doorframe and orders him to break his own hand. The second time Jean snarls something under his breath at Riko in French, Riko wraps his hands around his throat and squeezes until Jean promises (lies) that he’ll keep his mouth shut. (He loses his voice for a week, good riddance.) The third time Jean throws his Exy stick to the floor in frustration Riko forces him to hold the stick straight in front of him for an hour, and if his hands shake or drop (or if Riko feels like making him) then he’ll make him restart the hour. It’s well past midnight when Riko falls asleep in Kevin’s lap watching Jean hold his heavy-weighted backliner stick up, and it's morning again when he wakes up in Kevin's bed still smelling faintly like blood.

_ Is this living? _ asks the imaginary Kevin, except this time he's crying, hands shaking, trying to stop Jean's bleeding with a wad of bandages. _ Is it? _ he demands. Riko turns his back on the image, but Kevin reappears in the corner of his vision, kneeling at Riko’s feet, hands covered in Jean's blood.

Nine months, six days, eight broken fingers and innumerable bruises and cuts after Jean arrives at Castle Evermore, Riko takes a sharpie and scrawls the number four on his left cheek; Jean no longer jerks away at his touch.

(Nine months and six days later Riko forgets how to feel alive again.)

(After all, sticking a knife in someone somewhat loses its novelty after the first two or three or fifteen times.)

_ And this is living? _ repeats Not-Kevin.

Riko would have said _ yes, absolutely,_ with a wicked grin and a knife buried to the hilt in a screaming, thrashing Jean. A few months ago Riko would have laughed, put two fingers under Jean's chin to tip his head upwards, looked into his wild eyes and asked him _ this is living, don't you think?_

"No_ ,_ " concedes Riko aloud to a now-empty room, watching Jean's blood drip off his fingertips. "No… it's not."

***

And the last thing, the third and final thing death tastes like is Kevin's mouth.

(Why death? Because every time Kevin kisses him Riko's heart stops, which is the medical definition of death.)

Kevin finishes bandaging Riko's arms and leans down to press a kiss to his lips; Riko momentarily feels like he's being shredded apart, and then instinctively reaches up to touch Kevin's face.

(Why death? Because Riko sometimes forgets whose body is pressed against his and loses his mind for a short moment, finds he can't breathe when Kevin holds him down, feels like crawling out of his own skin when he bites too hard or too long.)

(And then Kevin will whisper _ open your eyes _ and Riko does and forgets about the Master and remembers his face is buried in the pillow and not pressed against the changing room walls.)

_ I was made for this, _ he thinks on nights after practice, gasping as Kevin holds him down into the bed, trying to keep quiet so that the Master doesn't hear. Suddenly Kevin flips him over so that they're facing each other, leans in and stops just short of Riko's lips, and he asks, out loud, "Is this living?"

Riko's answer is swallowed by a crushing, bruising kiss. Kevin shifts a little; Riko throws his head back against the pillow and cries out. Kevin asks again, in a whisper, "Is this living?"

_ God, _ thinks Riko, and then again out loud, "oh, God," (because it feels nice to think that the Raven's Nest isn't that far to hell.)

(Why death? Because Kevin is impatient, tries to steal kisses from right behind the Master's back, in plain sight of the Ravens, doesn't realize bird nests have thin walls. Because if Riko ever wants to look Kevin in the eye again he'll bite his lip till it bleeds to stop himself from screaming when the Master, when the Master—)

("How are you so good at this?" asks Kevin, gazing up at Riko straddling his lap. "It always hurts like hell for me at first," he adds and for a second Riko's blood runs cold, but all he does is bounce a little and make Kevin shut his eyes and groan.

"I'm just talented," Riko deadpans, and then smirks.)

(He almost slips up and says_ you're a lot gentler than the Master—)_

("Teach me how to do that," murmurs Kevin to a kneeling Riko, on a weekend afternoon in the kitchen, where Kevin had tried to make dinner and gotten distracted by Riko. "Or is it just that you're talented again?"

Riko pulls off with a wet noise, contemplating.

"I've had a lot of practice from deepthroating vegetables I don't want to taste," says Riko, then immediately regrets it. His voice rasps like sandpaper, making him wince and pray that Kevin never makes the connection with Riko constantly mysteriously losing his voice after the Master lets him out of the changing room, or the bruises on his knees and around his neck.

Riko doesn't wait for Kevin to reply and swallows him down all the way again, listening for Kevin's low, drawn-out groan.)

Kevin asks again on a lazy Saturday morning, breath hitching in his chest while Riko trails kisses down his jawline, his neck, lingers to suck on his collarbone.

"Is this living?"

Riko hums in consideration against Kevin's throat.

"That tickles," protests Kevin. Riko takes advantage of his distraction and snatches Kevin's collar and tugs his hoodie off, pulling it over himself.

"Hey!" yelps Kevin, trying to grab it back and only managing to pull Riko into his lap. Riko giggles and falls forwards into Kevin, stopping right at his face.

Kevin asks again on the Edgar Allan bus coach in a whisper against Riko's ear after the first match of the season, Riko nearly asleep on his shoulder. His hand rests on top of Riko's, absently tracing circles on Riko's palm.

"I can't feel my shoulder," groans Kevin. Riko buries his face in his neck instead.

"Like the way you smell," mumbles Riko, not completely awake.

"Is this living?" asks Kevin with a quiet laugh.

"Yes," Riko finally whispers back.

(This time, he's absolutely certain.)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading
> 
> so its been almost exactly a year since i wrote Nevermore which is... interesting??? i don't think I've ever been as invested in anything as I am in my precious garbage bitch son Riko Moriyama. i've certainly changed a lot since then, like back then I wrote sad edgy scenes while listening to Badlands by Halsey and now I still write sad edgy scenes but I listen to bubblegum kpop. LMAO last year I was also like 'I recognize Riko is a bad person who did bad things but I find his hypothetical dynamic with Kevin interesting and do not condone or approve of his actions—' and this year I'm like RIKO STEALS KEVINS OVERSIZED SWEATERS ITS CANON THEY GET MARRIED AND BAKE CAKES TOGETHER AND—
> 
> anyways as always find me on tumblr @castleevermore. I have a writing twt now, @castlevermore (be careful there's one less 'e' than my tumblr url)


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